Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-10-08
THE WOMAN'S BATH IN PERSIA
She Smokes and Gossips While Her
Hair is Being Colored With Henna.

She Smokes and Gossips While Her
Hair is Being Colored With Henna.
The hath takes up a good deal of the
time of all Persian Even the
poorest will attend the Hannah at
least once a week, says st. James
Gazette. For the lady the bath is one
of the serious affairs Of life and takes
up daily from two TO four hours. 1t is
something more than our idea of a
bath. The victim is scraped and
rubbed and parboiled. The soles of
the feet are pumiced until they are
soft and tender ~ those of a child.
The hair is thoroughly washed by
means of hot water and the sapon-
aceous clay for which Shiraz is cele-
brated.
Then the attendants mix in a brazen
bowl the aromatic henDa with the
requisite amount Of lemon juice, till n
brown paste of the consistency of cruel
is produced, and several handfuls of
the repul.ivc looking compound are
smeared over the lady's head.
Then the hair, collected into q
mass, is bound up in cabbage
leaves. Small quantities of the
dye are smeared over the eyebrows,
the soles of the feet, the toes, the palms
Of the hands, and the finger tips are
also covered with it. And now the
lady has to sit perfectly still for from
one to three hours, till, like a meer-
schaum pipe, she %colsrs; and it is ex-
actly the color obtained on the best
specimen of pipes that is most fashion
able among the Persian ladies. Day
after day the bath is thronged with
women, each sitting perfectly still Tor
the color to 'tske." Rut they have
their reward. for the henna dyes the
hair a beautiful deep warm chestnut;
hence gray hair is unknown among
Persian ladies. While the ~coloring
process has been going on tongues
have been running and a good deal of
scandal exchanged. The female bar
Der with IA pair Of tweezers has recev-
cred every outlying hair from the re-
gion of the lady's eyebrows, 1t is the
ambition of every Persian woman that
her eyebrows shall meet, or at least APP
pear to do SO. So attractive are eve
brows that meet that they are called
the bridge of love" The first care
then, of the Persian beauty is with a
little pencil of anthony TO unite her
eyebrows, and then she proceeds to
make them appear Of unnatural thick
ness; her eyelashes are penciled, too.
in "A n not unknown to our own
countrywomen. BY this time the lady
will have smoked many kalians OF WI
ter pipes, she Will have partaken Of tea
and RECALLED herself with coffee; iced
Sherbets, too, will not have been want
ing. Here finger tips. nails and palms
as well as the soles Of her feet and her
toes, have attained n bright chestnut
hue, which will last a week. The hair
is carefully washed once more. Ii is
seldom under a yard long, often much
more, for the Persian oma never
cuts her hair, except in front, perhaps,
wher two heavy forelocks are left on
either side Of the face. The ladies now
return home to their MONDAY break
fasts. After breakfast there is gen
orally a ~siesta, and this in a hot coun-
try IS almost a necessity. About 4
o'clock tea and pipes appear, and then
tn. lady receives callers or pays visits,
or perhaps does a little shopping. or
takes the air mounted on her ambling
mule or a donkey of snowy Wilderness.